Ya (kana)

ya
Hiragana
Katakana
Transliterationya
Hiragana origin
Katakana origin
Man'yōgana也 移 夜 楊 耶 野 八 矢 屋
Spelling kana大和のヤ Yamato no "ya"
UnicodeU+3084, U+30E4
Braille

Ya (hiragana: や, katakana: ヤ) is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The hiragana is written in three strokes, while the katakana is written in two. Both represent [ja]. Their shapes have origins in the character 也.

When small and preceded by an -i kana, this kana represents a palatalization of the preceding consonant sound with the [a] vowel (see yōon).

や can be used by itself as a grammatical particle to connect words in a nonexhaustive list (see Japanese particles#ya).

Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal y-
(や行 ya-gyō)
ya
yaa
やあ, やぁ
やー
ヤア, ヤァ
ヤー